Presented in Morningside Park from August 5th to November 30th 2023, FOH celebrates Harlem through the lens of 10 contemporary photographers. Inspired by the Harlem Renaissance and the neighborhood’s ever-changing diaspora, we're inviting residents and visitors alike to learn about the neighborhood while uplifting Black and Latinx experiences.
For this third iteration of FACES OF HARLEM, Founder and Chief-Curator Sade Boyewa El and Co-Curator Madeleine Budd for the youth showcase, continue the mission of inspiring meaningful conversations, fostering connection, and bridging some of the many visible gaps in the community by bringing this public outdoor exhibition to Harlem exploring intimate stories about Black Love and Black Joy, documenting Harlemites in their intimate spaces. We're excited to give you a deeper look into community, history, creativity, work, family life, relationships, love, faith and more.
This year again, FACES OF HARLEM is including teen perspectives in the mix by inviting five Harlem youth photographers to showcase their work in Morningside Park.
“Now, it is true that the nature of society is to create, among it’s citizens, an illusion of safety; but it is also absolutely true that the safety is always necessarily an illusion. Artists are here to disturb the peace. They have to disturb the peace. Otherwise chaos.”
~James Baldwin
FACES OF HARLEM 2023 PHOTOGRAPHERS
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Tamara Blake Chapman
Tamara Blake Chapman is an artist living and working in New York. Their work centers their understanding of affirmation and its relation to identity and belonging. Through a quaint and kind eye they use photography to explore world-building, often reflecting on the connection between memories, futurity, and their feelings of navigating desire. T also writes and is a classically trained ballet dancer. They hold a BA in Journalism and Design from The New School.
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Jan Anthonio Diaz
Jan Anthonio Diaz is a 24-year-old Dominican-American photographer born & raised in Washington Heights, New York. Diaz’s artistic journey began at 16, when he was scouted on the streets of New York to be a professional model. With a passion for capturing the essence of his community, Diaz has turned his lens to the streets, using his camera as a tool to document and share the stories of the people and places that make up his neighborhood. Jan’s mission is to shed light on the beauty and resilience of the individuals and families who call this part of New York City home, showcasing their unique style, perspectives and experiences.
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Flordalis Espinal
Flordalis Espinal is a Bronx native photographer. Her work focuses on amplifying the beauty of her hometown’s rawness and culture through her timeless film portraits. Flordalis’ calm approach has allowed her to form genuine connections with her subjects, capturing them in their most authentic state. She is the Founder of Girls Who Shoot, a community organization dedicated to highlighting, educating, and providing spaces for black and brown women in the visual arts world.
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Jeremy Grier
Jeremy Grier (b. 1994 Hartford, CT) is a New York based photographer whose work and practice fits into the lineage of Black portraiture by exploring themes of intimacy, identity, and belonging, which affirm the expressive nature of Black life-both subtle and overt. In this way, his projects ground beauty as more than performance, but as constitutive to the complexity and vitality of people of African descent. In Fall 2023, Grier will attend Yale University to study his Master of Fine Arts in Photography.
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Marcia Bricker Halperin
Marcia Bricker Halperin is a lifelong New Yorker who has been photographing the characters and landscapes of the city for almost 50 years. She received a Master of Fine Arts from Brooklyn College and studied photography with Lisette Model at the New School. From 1978 -1980 Marcia was a part of the CETA Artist’s Project documentation team. Her photography has been included in many group exhibitions, including at the Brooklyn Museum and the International Center of Photography and is represented in a number of collections.
After spending thirty-five years in K-12 education teaching art and photography and using her creativity in special education she has begun a deep dive into her photography archives.
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Elajah Mogoli
Elijah, born in 1998 Brooklyn, New York, is an African American photographer of both Grenadian and Nigerian Igbo descent. Elijah Mogoli first got interested in photography in May of 2019 when he discovered a Polaroid SX-70 as a free giveaway on a stoop in Brooklyn Heights. After finding that camera, curiosity about film photography and the analogue process overtook him. He started shooting with a 35mm camera using color film. Currently he focuses on black and white film photography which he develops at home.* Also in 2019 , during his first visit to Ghana, his interest in documentary photography blossomed. That trip ignited a love of wanderlust. On his travels he captures intimate moments of people throughout the world. In May of 2021 he returned to his native country of Grenada to document his family and island.
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Katsu Naito
Katsu Naito is a photographer and artist who lives in New York City. He moved from his native Japan to New York City in 1983. In 1987, he visited Harlem for the first time and that experience made him decide to live in Harlem and it became his residence the following year. He currently lives in East Harlem. It took him 2 years to earn the trust from the community to photograph, capture and create the significant moments of an unforgettable timeless body of work. His photographs of Harlem were published in 2017 in a book titled “Once in Harlem”.
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Kaila Burke-Ozuna
Kaila Burke-Ozuna is a visual artist and native New Yorker (b. 1999). Her childhood in Harlem, spent close to all kinds of cultures, directed her desire to express the many truths she witnessed at once. Photography became a medium to observe the symmetries and asymmetries she experiences in life. The city taught her how to pay attention to detail; the color of a fire hydrant, the matching pair of Jordans worn on a father and his daughter, missing teeth in an open smile, the weight of rain clouds, the way it seemed only black and brown people stayed on the Uptown 2/3 train after 96th st. This foundation of close looking translates to her work as she captures details that are often overlooked. Her images honor and explore the intricate choreographies of history and its people, in private and shared spaces.
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Lindsay Perryman
Lindsay Perryman is a Brooklyn born photographer of Caribbean-Chinese descent. They work in the field of portraiture and fashion, and loves to promote diversity through their choice of under-represented faces. In 2021, Perryman released The Colors We Don't See At The End Of The Rainbow, a limited edition zine of faces of the lgbtq community.
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Laila Annmarie Stevens
Laila Annmarie Stevens (b. 2001) is a Black Queer Photographer and Youth Educator from Queens, NY completing her BFA at The Fashion Institute of Technology. Their portraiture is informed by their passion for honoring marginalized youth voices, described as a raw and intimate perspective. As a recipient of the 2020 Magnum Foundation: US Dispatches Award, Stevens has furthered the production of community-centered and socially engaged projects. Their work has been frequently published in The New York Times Metropolitan Section, National Geographic, The Nation, The Salt Lake Tribune, and Cultured Magazine, among other publications. She is a student of the Eddie Adams Workshop Class of XXXIV, a full-time member of Black Woman Photographers, Diversify Photo, and Scope of Work (SOW).
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Mikayle Despaigne
Mikayle Despaigne is a Harlem and Washington Heights based photographer. She enjoys shooting environmental portraits and wants to tell stories through people and their interactions with each other. She first got into photography in middle school and hopes to continue her photography journey well into college and beyond.
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Salvador Peña Nissenblatt
Salvador Peña Nissenblatt is an artist from Harlem. His photography journey began at the Studio Museum in Harlem, where he learned the techniques and history of the medium. His love for photography arose through his passion capturing moments in time, for emotion, beauty, and human nature alike.
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Jeremiah Nunez
Jeremiah Nunez was born in Manhattan and raised in Harlem on 127th street between 5th and Lenox Avenue. Ever since he was a child, he expanded on his own curiosity through the photographic lens as he would marvel at his Dad's camera. As he grew up, his knowledge of photography increased and now as a young aspiring photographer, his passion and love for humanity has expanded into documenting the people of his Harlem community.
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Marilyn Romerick
Marilyn Romerick is a 15 year old Harlem based photographer. Since 2022 she has been enrolled in ICP at THE POINT, a youth-centered analog photo program based in the Bronx. She draws inspiration for her photo practice from joyful moments with her family and tight knit group of friends. Her work was on display in the group banner exhibition ICP at THE POINT: Beauty in Being at the Photoville Festival, 2023.
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Jack Van Clief
Jack Van Clief is a photographer born and raised in East Harlem. Jack's favorite thing to photograph are the emotions and aesthetics of the people around him. Outside of photography, Jack enjoys playing basketball and learning about different design techniques.